Wednesday, November 11, 2015

This n That

Well, it's been a terribly fast-moving fall. I feel like before we left for Canada everything was operating at a certain comfortable pace, and ever since we've come home, it's been break-neck speed!

Most of that has to do with school - oh the cursive, and english, and science, and health, and and and. Kenna and Brooks just have to do so much more now than when they were little like Sonny & Grey - who can knock out required work in about an hour.

The house: October was going to be a banner month...new granite countertops, a new fridge, a new dishwasher and microwave...and we got as far as the countertops! And then the HVAC on the Hugo house completely went out. The cost of repairing the system was just not worth it, as we don't have an exact date on the thing, but it's definitely 20 years old. So it had lived its life well. The cost of repairs was a third of the cost of a brand new system - so we made obvious choice and just replaced everything. Which is really good - but means definitely no new fridge, right now anyway. And why are fridges so expensive anyway?! Wow! The house is quite livable even without the upper cabinets, but we've got plans for them soon! I currently have more than double the counterspace I had in the old kitchen, which has made cooking a dream! I love it! Also, silly as it may seem, but the sink and faucet we chose are just amazing. The sink is so large, you can fit an entire dishwasher load (up and down) in just one side. I'm loving it! I spend a bit of time cleaning out the garage today - it always seems to get disasterized quickly. You would not even believe the stuff I touched. With.my.hands. Whew! It was crazy. I put all the extension cords in their place - but just piled up. I tried to wind them, and just couldn't handle it. That awful feeling of dry dusty dirt on the cords are about where I draw the line. I pointed this out to Brian and just said "you wind them". LOL.

Time is always so short it seems - Brian is very busy with work these days. With the pressures of running a company it's oftentimes more politics and mental work than physical labour, but exhausting just the same. Adding to that church responsibilities, kids sports, and stuff for fun (like having friends over), and it just seems like time slips away rapidly! Because it's almost Christmas! Yikes.

We signed all three kids up in a learn to play hockey program at the local arena. This will mostly involve learning how to skate well, I'd imagine, in their particular cases. But they've got no where to go but up! It will be very interesting to see how they do - it starts on Nov 21st and runs for 8 weeks. I wonder how many times they'll have to repeat the same class? :-D I'll be sure to take before and after videos of their skills. They can really barely skate at all currently, so I'm sure it'll look like marked improvement, even though its just learning how to skate:-)

We were considering going to NY for Thanksgiving this month, but given our expenses in the month of October, we've decided to stick close to home. So we're hosting Friendsgiving, and will have other "homeless people" (aka other friends who also have no local family and are not travelling) over and eat turkey and all that fun stuff. I just started menu planning today - because they're already playing Christmas music on the radio, so Thanksgiving just seems really close now:-)

If you follow on my Instagram feed you have a decent idea of whats been happening day by day. Huck wandered a little too far from home last week and was taken to the animal shelter. That was "fun". He seems super grateful for the rescue and has been really cuddly since then. I guess 2 nights locked in a cage will give you some perspective. Also, you have no idea how hard it is to identify cats at a shelter. When there are no less than thirty thousand of them. And they all look the same after a while. Thankfully Huck has that poofy squirrel tail, so that made it easier to tell. Also by the fact that he found us before we found him and was pressed against his cage bleating like a crazy lamb (he has a very weird meow) until we acknowledged him. Poor kitty. He is Brian's fave, because he is so beautiful, so Brian was glad of his rescue. I think he's beautiful - but quirky. It's hard for me to pick a fave, but I feel like Sawyer and I get along best.

We're gearing up for picture day! I can't wait! We have a few cool things planned this year, different from what we've done in the past, so I'm hoping it turns out as envisioned.

On tv: The Blacklist
On iTunes: Adele's Hello and Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud
On the stove: Bone broth soup! The kids fave meal!

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

A Spooky Movie

Kenna and her friends were playing around on the friends ipad. And thanks to some nifty acting, camera work and music, created this adorably frightful movie trailer. Kenna and Julia appear to be the main characters, while Claire is doing the camera work...and appears briefly at the end as the scary villain.

Seeing this literally made me LAUGH out loud! Kudos to their budding skills;-)